On feeling stuck - and finding flow
Not my image! If you know the creator, please let me know! I like to think about the “discipline” side as “fighting against” versus “discipline.”
The sensation of feeling stuck is a familiar one in my being - and, yet, so unwelcome. It’s as if I can feel invisible spider webs all over my arms, but I can’t quite ever brush away the feeling that they are there. It's that yearning to move forward, but feeling like I'm a cartoon character spinning their legs, preparing for takeoff but suspended in this liminal space.
Funnily enough, it's those liminal spaces where I encounter the most stagnation. (Maybe it's a "chicken or the egg" type thing). Those experiences of transformation, creating something new, collective unrest (or collective grief or…), experiencing loss - so much can shift so quickly in those "moments," and yet, there are inevitably lulls, roadblocks, or plateaus in the journey. These moments can be welcome spaces to breathe, and they also can be the place of tension between desperately trying to move and going "nowhere" (which can be unbearable and even activating.)
They might be moments where our inner critic (or society) starts unfairly analyzing and interrogating.
"Why haven't I gotten over this breakup yet?"
"Why can't I just get myself to do this?"
"What's wrong with me?"
What capitalistic/colonialistic culture wants us to forget is that we aren't supposed to be moving constantly, growing constantly. To grow, we often need to rest. To be. Navigating portals is no different. We find ourselves needing to rest. We find ourselves needing to be present with our feelings. We find ourselves humbled (or frustrated, or both...) by the amount of control we have in the journeys of grief, of trying to conceive, of welcoming a new baby into the world.
So, what can we even do in those moments?
Long story short, there is not much to do in the linear sense of moving ourselves along in these journeys. We can't heal ourselves, get "over" grief, or get pregnant simply by willing it to be so. And we certainly can't will ourselves into having more control in a situation than we have. (Although, I have certainly tried. And likely will try again.)
We can be aware of how this stasis is showing up in our lives, how we relate to it, and how it feels in our bodies.
We can be tender with ourselves and others.
We can meet movement where it exists and in ways that we can control.
—> This might look like: honoring feelings of frustration, breathing practices, going for a walk, cleaning our altar, journaling, changing the room we're working in, lighting a candle, practicing presence, calling in your support system to witness you, and beyond.
We can take a break. Feeling stuck can lead to feelings of overwhelm. And, unfortunately, that can be exacerbated when we push - or are pushed - to "move forward." Taking a break and resting are types of movements, too.
We can build up our communities of care. Who’s back do you have? Who’s got yours?
We can practice calling in a vision for our life or this journey. When we use our senses to call in a vision for our life, we create a nourishing foundation for the next part of our journey. This practice helps root us into our why. An important anchor for these portal journeys. And while it might not will our future into existence, it does create some yummy energy around those futures. You can create a vision board, journal about how you want to feel in the future, or use a guided visualization to see it in your mind's eye. (Check out the guided visualization at the end of this post from a past Small Seeds offering! You can find the transcript here.)
This is, of course, a non-exhaustive list. And I hope that it offers some direction, dear ones.
How else are you in the practice of finding flow amid stagnation?
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Michelle Castor (she/they) is a mixed brown queer femme and a Portal Doula. They support individuals and communities in navigating the portal-like transformations of grief, loss, fertility, pregnancy, and the postpartum - along with intentionally imagining and creating life on the “other side” of these portals or thresholds. Find out more about them and this work here and follow her online here.
